Cover of The Language of Power

The Language of Power

core novel 2004 The Steerswoman

Record

First published2004
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating4.38 (1,932 ratings, collected 2026-08-27)
Page count389
First-edition ISBN9780345468352
Internal chronology4

Synopsis

The fourth book in the series finds Rowan continuing to gather evidence that the wizard Slado is secretly conjuring dangerous, world-altering spells, building on the discoveries of the previous volume. Her pursuit of the truth pushes her steadily closer to a genuine, systematic understanding of how the wizards' so-called magic actually works, work that stands to overturn the assumptions the Inner Lands have lived under for generations. As she gets nearer to answers that the wizards have guarded for so long, the personal risk to Rowan, to her companion Bel, and to those around her grows correspondingly greater. First published in 2004, The Language of Power belongs to the The Steerswoman series.

Where it sits

Notes

  • From the series record (The Steerswoman): A planned 7-book sequence; 4 published so far. Admitted transparently on the same genre-boundary basis as Dragonriders of Pern/The Book of the New Sun: shelved and marketed as fantasy, but the setting gradually reveals a lost-technology, post-catastrophe science-fictional explanation for its apparent magic.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.

  • Reading order, within the series The Steerswoman: position 4 of 4: previous The Lost Steersman (2003)

Sources

← The Steerswoman dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.